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This study investigated links between short‐term memory skills and children's abilities to learn the vocabulary of a foreign language taught in school. Forty‐five Greek children who were learning English as a foreign language were assessed on their short‐term memory in both languages, and on their knowledge of both native and foreign vocabulary. Knowledge of native and foreign vocabulary shared highly significant associations with the phonological short‐term memory measures. However, vocabulary scores in the two languages shared a close relationship that could not be explained exclusively in terms of phonological loop capacity. Implications of these findings for theoretical accounts of how words are learned in the native and foreign language are considered.